My co-pending application discloses an apparatus in which a pre-conditioned supply of chlorine concentrate is deposited into a vertically arranged container having its lower end in communication with that of a chlorine concentrate supply tube which is disposed vertically adjacent and parallel to the vertically arranged container and has an open upper end for overflow into a mixing chamber confining the concentrate supply tube for receiving the overflow liquid concentrate therefrom. The mixing chamber has an outlet at its lower end communicating with the down stream side of the return line of the pool water circulating system. The system has a bypass conduct leading from its upstream side for metered flow into the upper region of the chlorine concentrate container.
A layer of separating material is floatingly supported upon the upper surface of the supply of chlorine concentrate in the container. The incoming bypassed pool water admitted into the upper region of the container builds up to a level therein and rises to the horizontal level of the upper end of the chlorine supply tube. This forces the chlorine concentrate in the container to rise in the supply tube and to overflow into the mixing chamber in quantitative volume equal to the admission of the bypassed fluid into the container above the chlorine concentrate solution.
This present application is a continuation in part of the disclosure in the aforementioned co-pending application. The difference involves elimination of the separating material supported upon the chlorine concentrate and the provision of a steeping chamber in the upper region of the container for supporting a supply of dry crystaline granular chlorine salts or powder and for receiving the bypassed pool water coming from the upstream side of the pool water circulating system.
The steeping chamber of the present application has a perforated bottom whereby bypassed pool water collecting over the dry granular chlorine crystals steep through the latter and drops into the container as chlorine concentrate. Once the chlorine concentrate in the container builds up to the level of the upper end of the concentrate supply tube for overflow (as above stated), the operation of the apparatus is the same as described and claimed in my earlier application, Ser. No. 667,262.
It should here be noted that other patents in the prior art disclosed one form or another of a chlorine releasing chemical material soluble in water such as to create a chlorine concentrate. The U.S. Pat. No. 3,474,817 to Bates et al, dated Oct. 8, 1969, shows cakes of such material in a bypass line. U.S. Pat. No. 3,203,440, which issued to Schneider on Aug. 31, 1965, shows the same; whereas the Schneider U.S. Pat. No. 3,323,539 of June 6, 1967, shows chlorine compound sticks over which bypassed pool water flows to release the desired amount of chlorine directly thereto.
The only patent of which I am aware showing granular material introduced into bypassed pool water is the one that issued on Apr. 17, 1973, to Pansini as U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,632. In the Pansini disclosure, the material is in the form of pellets or shot stored in an overhead hopper and gate fed into a mixing chamber in response to a float valve disposed therein dependent upon the level of bypassed pool water as it collects in such mixing chamber. It is within the mixing chamber of the Pansini disclosure that the chlorine containing pellets dissolve so as to create a chlorine addative (not a concentrate) for direct flow into the downstream side of the return line.
In applicant's disclosure, it is the steeping of the dry chemical within the steeping chamber that releases the chlorine as a chlorine concentrate into the vertically arranged container therefor.